Larry Birdonce said that, “A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals”.

Larry Joe Bird was born in West Baden, Indiana on December 7, 1956. Larry Bird went to West Braden Springs where he became a key component in his high school basketball team. Larry Bird was the leading top scorer for his high basketball team which landed him an athletic scholarship to the University of Indiana. Larry Bird soon decided that the Hoosier campus was not for him, so he transferred to Indiana State University.

Larry Bird’s senior year was basically the year that would lead him to be a NBA superstar. Larry Bird led the game against Michigan State Spartans which turn into a NCAA Championship. Larry bird left that year at Indiana State University as the USBWA College Player of the year, the Naismith Award, and the Wooden Award. He was also seen as the fifth highest scorer in the NCAA history.

Larry Bird was Boston Celtics number one draft pick in 1978, signing a contract worth $650,000 dollars a year. According to Biography.com, “Larry Bird first year in the NBA, averaging 21.3 points per game and taking NBA Rookie of the Year honors. Bird also led the Celtics in rebounding, averaging 10.4 rebounds per game; as well as steals and minutes played, with an average of 143 steals and 2,955 minutes played each game.” In his second year Larry Bird and two of his teammates were seen as the legendary frontline in the NBA history. The Celtics that season posted a record 61-21 and defeated the Houston Rockets. This was Larry Bird’s first NBA Championship in his career.

Today, Larry Bird is said to have played 13 seasons with the Boston Celtics; Larry Bird in 1981, 84, 86 won three NBA championships; and in 1984,85,86 he got three NBA MVP. Larry Bird was elected into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1998.

Communication 269 course has taught me tremendous things about the public relations field. Being aviation major I did have a clue what public relations was really about. Coming into this class I thought that it was going to be a very tough class but it turns out that it’s not so tough as long as you show up and make sure you are prepared for what’s to come. After taking this course I can define public relations which are a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.

Communication 269 has taught me how to make a professional LinkedIn, Twitter, and Blog. I’m very thankful to have taken this class because I did not know anything about twitter. I did not know how to even know how to hashtag or let alone tweet but I can honestly say that by taking this course it has taught me to tweet and hashtag. Communication 269 also helped me to be a blogger. I never seen myself as being a blogger but thanks to this course I know how to blog. Communication 269 has not only taught me how to make professional social media’s, it has also helped me to better sell myself online for any job that may come my way.

I also learned to make press releases and code of ethics page. A press release an official statement issued to newspapers giving information on a particular matter. A code of ethic is a written set of guidelines issued by an organization to its workers and management to help them conduct their actions in accordance with its primary values. I would not have known what a press release or code of ethics was if I had not taken this course.

I also would like to recommend that you take Communication 269 with professor Mullen. She has not made this a learning course for public relations but she also made it a very fun and enjoyable course at the same time. Instead just reading the chapter plain from the book she had creative PowerPoint’s and cast studies to go alone with them. Her teaching style did not bore me or put me to sleep like some professors. Her energetic and humorous personality made the course more enjoyable and learning at the same time.

Back in January Walgreens appeared on Twitter account with a promoted hashtag that said #ILoveWalgreens. Walgreens paid a six figure amount to get this listed. They obviously wanted people to tweet and pronounce their love for the company and store.

Adam Kmiec, Walgreens’ Director of Social Media, says that Walgreens had three goals in mind for Twitter;

“We wanted to tap into all the reasons people love Walgreens and drive awareness of this conversation beyond just our followers.”

“We also wanted to help make any transition as easy as possible and ensure that our patients fully understand the issue. So we also had a process to redirect them to the right answers or take the conversation offline.”

The use for paid advertising for Walgreens here ended up being terrible for them. Instead of driving these types of goals for them, however drew them vocal critics and very disappointed tweeters.

Some people accused them for trying to pay for love while other just flat-out self-promoted Walgreens in a hashtag language that was respectable.

Walgreens paid to have #ILoveWalgreens appear as a trending topic; which is ok, because Twitter allows a paid trending topic once a day. But the work then is to get people to trend along. It did not take much to get them appear to trend along. The tweets that were seen on twitter ranged from severe to hysterical and a few that seemed scary like the ones about making meth. Here are some examples of hashtags that have gone wrong for Walgreens:

“#ILoveWalgreens because the cheese has been in the cooler so long that you only have one day to eat it after purchase”

“#ILoveWalgreens because I prefer to pay $6 for a half-gallon of milk”

“#ILoveWalgreens because I know I can always find the ingredients to make meth there.”

According to Jean, LIVESTRONG’S PR Staff Talks Crisis, Lance Armstrong an American former professional road racing cyclist admitted to Oprah Winfrey of taking illicit performance.

Lance Armstrong one of America’s greatest athletes, acknowledged of cheating for at least a decade. After years of denying that he had taken forbidden drugs such as oxygen boosting blood transfusions and attack team members and competitors who tried to expose him. He finally came clean on Oprah Winfrey with an exclusive interview of admitting to using banned substances for years.

Lance Armstrong mentions in his interview with Oprah, “I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times,” he said. “I know the truth. The truth isn’t what was out there. The truth isn’t what I said.”

He also said, “I’m a flawed character, as I well know,” Armstrong added. “All the fault and all the blame here falls on me.”

He mentions to Oprah that the illegal drugs he took were cortisone, blood transfusion, and testosterone. He did not admit to Oprah the details of when and where he doped during the seven winning Tours de France that was between 1999 and 2005. He also confessed that he stopped doping after 2005 Tour de France victory and did not use any more illegal drugs when he came in third place in 2009.

The two PR teams with LIVESTRONG Foundation and the cancer treatment organization founded by Lance Armstrong, received the news six days before the interview with Oprah. The LIVESTRONG organization was surely in trouble and the PR were severely challenge in this crisis to rescue their reputation and their work of the organization. So what did they do?

The first thing the organization did was to become experts in the subject matter and they learned that you can either shout or whisper but DO NOT REMAIN QUIET. The organization only had six days of notice so they try to stay ahead as much as possible by being in control of the news. The LIVESTRONG organization found that allowing donors, friends, and supporters to speak on the behalf of the organization was better effective than allowing the foundation spokesperson. They assessed the issue in a hyper-diligent way by amplifying stories of their everyday recipients of the foundation. They also did not include themselves with any extra crisis consultants, but however they did use a firm to conduct research and gauge in people’s feeling about the organization post-scandal.

LIVESTRONG is currently in the process of rebuilding their foundation. They continue to this day to do their mission which is to help people with cancer get support they need.

According to Katie Shill, 5 Refreshers for Writing an Effective Press Release, press releases are valued to be very crucial to PR professions because they provide you with the opportunity to share great news and enhance company’s visibility. Before you put out an effective press release it is very important to ask yourself two vital question: does the reporter find the information compelling and will the journalist find your announcement to be worth covering?

If your answer is yes to both of these question then here is some helpful tips provided by Katie Shill that will ensure you that your press release will be very effective:

1. Know the alternatives:

It is important for you to know if press release is the best option for you on how to share news and announcements. Then you need to be an imperative advisor to your clients. It is important to share alternatives that maybe as effective such as social media and updating your blogs.

2. Avoid corporate speak:

It is essential to be very clear. You should take the time to fully comprehend the press release and make sure that you that you speak directly to your audience and not use that corporate jargon. Un-Suck It or Learnings.org are useable websites to help you find better word replacements.

3. Streamline your release to just one angle:

You want to simplify your message for your press release by focusing on one idea. It is good for you to minimize qualifiers and conditional tenses and think of active sentences with strong verbs. The chances of your audience remembering you better are great if you keep your message simpler.

4. Focus on features and benefits:

When focusing on features and benefits the feature is said to answer the question what?, while the benefit as the question why?. Your announcements should be showcased, followed by an explanation of the value of your product for the target audience and end users. It is vital to focus on what’s in it for the people because by doing that people will want to learn more about your information.

Rajat Gupta was a CEO of a company called McKinsey and he was a board member of investment banker Goldman Sachs. He was seen as a very highly respected business leader. Unfortunately, in March of 2011 Rajat Gupta was charged with the largest insider trading case in the United States. Rajat Gupta was caught for feeding felon Raj Rajaratnam inside information from the two most high boards he sat on which were Procter & Gamble and Goldman Sachs. According to Anita Raghavan “in June of 2012 Gupta was found guilty of conspiracy and securities fraud in the connection to tips about Goldman, including Warren Buffet’s $5 billion investment in the bank during the financial crisis. Gupta phoned Rajaratnam, who then brought $35 million worth of Goldman stock. Gupta was sent to prison for two years” (Raghavan).

Rajat Gupta shocking scandal broke the trust of Goldman Sachs because he was seen as a trusted advisor who was a veteran at Goldman Sachs. The value of the firm to its clients and its effectiveness as an advisor requires knowing all the secrets and keeping them close to you.

What could Goldman Sachs do differently? Goldman Sachs could have shown a much better public appearance about the situation instead they failed to explain themselves to the public. Goldman Sachs also stonewalled them when talking to the congress and the press. They also done a deter job of recruiting from the same pool of potential employees such as MBA’s from Harvard Business school. For instances, pitch for those who are willing to earn less in exchange for a purer conscience.

Indeed, Rajat Gupta did hurt his company Goldman Sachs but he did not hurt them entire. As of day it is said that Goldman Sachs is returning back on track in a matter of time.

Azhar Hussain is an assistant professor of aviation management at Indiana State University and is my academic advisor who I conducted a face to face interview. I started off by asking Professor Hussain what is a typical week like for you. A typical week for Hussain is teaching three classes a week and always preparing for his classes by going over his PowerPoint’s. When he is not instructing and preparing for classes through the week he is attending to his classwork for his doctorate degree.

Professor Hussain shared with me a project that he was proud about. It was wildlife hazardous project that he worked on at Kissimmee Airport. It took him about a year to gather up all the data such as where they roost, nest, feeding areas, fly from, and where do the wildlife go at night. Then Professor Hussain proceeded to put this data on maps to have a clue from where the activity is coming from. After doing that the plan was to eliminate these areas for a safer airport environment. It was a long project but it gave him a better understanding where these wildlife came from and how to remove them for safer traffic.

Professor Hussain education did not prepare him as much for working in public relations. Professor Hussain only had the basics in college such as communication courses and some public relations courses. Professor Hussain said that most of the time you learn from on job training such as:

You learn how to answer questions.

You learn how to reactive to certain things.

And you learn how to take care of certain issues without raising any problems.

Professor Hussain attended Florida Institute of Technology in the year of 1983 to 1987, where he graduated with a Bachelor’s degree of science . Three years later Professor Hussain graduated from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and received a Master’s degree in aviation. Professor Hussain has currently obtained a Doctor of Education, Instructional Tech, and Distance Learning from Nova Southeastern University.

One thing that blogs have in common is an individual voice which is so important when it comes to blog commenting. It is a voice that will not only gain attention but attract readers and keep them as well. Here are some tips:

1. You have to position yourself as an expert.

For instance , when people want to look for something that involves information on a subject matter they look for it on the internet. In general, blogging is about having discussions in the public eye and making sure that you are an expert on your subject matter. In order for you to do that, you should already be answering the questions that people on the internet search for.

2. It’s a great way to share your experiences and information.

Social blogging is said to be used as sharing your experiences in adding to the ideas and concepts of a business. It is hopeful for you to seek unique opportunities in sharing your ideas and experiences. Then you should state them to your readers that way you will eventually bring more prospects.

3. Always mix it up and keep it fresh to viewers.

It is not good to be the frequent one note update every now and then. You should try to mix it up. For instances, it is helpful for you to implement images and videos on your blogs for your readers. Why, because it sparks up conservation and puts a good twist on your blog each time.

Here are some tips on how to write a great blog comment:

1.Add your thoughts to the conversation.

It is very important that you add your own in take and highlight main issues that the blogger addressed. You do not have to completely agree and stick to their point.

2. Comment early.

You do not want to wait to watch comments pile up and then try to build on their comments. Because if you wait to long to comment on the blog, all of the main points might have already been addressed.

3. Do not over promote yourself.

It is not good to just share a comment that is a link of your name, that leads back to your blog site. This is a fast way to lose bloggers because of trying to commercial yourself.